By ED BARK@unclebarkycom on Twitter Like it or not, there’s a reason why the NBC broadcast network sends the majority of Stanley Cup playoff matches to cable’s NBC Sports Net.

In the D-FW market and many others, the NHL’s biggest stage means nothing to most viewers.

Monday night’s Game 4 of the Cup Finals, won 4-2 by the St. Louis Blues over the Boston Bruins on the main NBC stage, ran a distant last in total D-FW viewers against all competing programming on Fox, ABC and CBS.

Blues-Bruins pulled in 70,293 total viewers while prime-time’s top draw, Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast, had 196,820. In comparison, Sunday night’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals pulled in 365,524 viewers, even though those numbers are appreciably down so far from the 2018 Finals.

Hockey also was beaten by Fox’s Beat Shazam (168,703 viewers), CBS’ new 8 p.m. episode of The Code (168,703), CBS’ rerun of Bull (161,674), Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance (140,586), ABC’s Celebrity Family Feud and CBS’ repeat of The Neighborhood (126,527 viewers apiece) and CBS’ Man With a Plan (112,469).

The picture among advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-olds proved to be a bit brighter for hockey, which averaged 33,211 viewers in outdrawing all of the programming on old-skewing CBS. But Game 4 of the Cup Finals lost to everything else in this key demographic, with Beat Shazam the night’s top draw with 69,442.

Here are Monday’s local news derby results.

WFAA8 took the 10 p.m. top spot in total viewers while Fox4 won among 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

Fox4 won in total viewers at 6 a.m., but was tied by WFAA8 for the No. 1 ranking with 25-to-54-year-olds.

The 5 p.m. wins went to Fox4 in both ratings measurements, with the station also taking the 6 p.m. crown among 25-to-54-year-olds. WFAA8 drew the most total viewers at 6 p.m.